Apparently, when the room was built, they found there was a buildup of 100Hz at the lip of the raised area; the "bench" was added to fix the issue. Handy place to dump a bunch of stuff while loading in!

Might that be JW's drums?

Who dat?

Joey Waronker

Nice!

Oh, duh! No, it wasn't him, but I can totally see why you'd ask that given the setup.

Left handed, Istanbul cymbals...

Drums at home! This is a surprisingly great room for drums despite the low ceilings. I think there's something about the drop ceilings being somewhat absorbent, but I'm not sure.

This was basically the drum setup, but I put the ribbon on the right in the picture flat like the one on the left and vertically in line with it once the hi hats and such were set up. Mics were positioned a little more "accurately" to where I wanted them once the drummer had his kit all set up and adjusted more.

SAE u47 - center overhead
NoHype LRMVs - one over the ride, one over the crash to make an equidistant triangle with the center u47
Soyuz 023 - kick
re20 - middle of kit just above the kick (positioned it higher than in this photo)
sm57s - snare top and bottom
sennheiser 421s - floor and rack toms
Vanguard v13 - front of kit mic

Result is huge and focused. NoHypes are insanely great and quality is well beyond their price. In the future, I would like to have a Soyuz 017 tube in the v13 position and AKG 414s on the toms, but the Senns do sound really nice there as is.

Flat cymbals that are parallel to the ground always perplexed me. The striking downward with the shoulder or tip, on the outward ring of cymbal will produce a different crash sound, its just not comfortable for <ME.

I use a high tom and floor tom for years and my ride cymbal actually sits in my bass drum mount and my high tom is on a snare. I have tried the to put my ride vertically(to enforce tip bounce) but it doesnt work for me.

I played in grindcore bands where im doing 64th note fills and I could never play with that much space between my high mounted toms. WE are all built differant though. Gene kruppas snare position orGene Hoglans ride position(and his stroke on left side) i feel contributes to his TOUCH but his sound is is also influenced.

@ Drumsound man I LOVE your theater set up, but wouldnt want to lug all that. Carl Palmer is amazing and had a beautiful set up. I was never ina prog band but if i was... more options the better. From a showmanship aspect a big kit makes sense, only if you use it. To ME use the kit and make it a behemoth percussion set up where all your tones and drum ideas can flourish. Hire a roadie too...or make the singer do it. All they carry is a mic...lol...

I don't remember talking about that setup here. That was in high school, so it wasn't like I was lugging timpani and bells in a car and into a club. Stuff went from the band room to the auditorium, and I probably had people helping.

I’m working on a video review of my new Sugar Percussion 15x7 snare, here’s a frame from it. I decided not to do the close mic top/bottom thing on the snare, it can sound great but usually isn’t a very natural representation of the snare. I put my stereo Vanguard V44s out in front of the snare with both capsule facing forward. One was in omni and one in figure 8, it gave me some nice control between snap and body. Also put my old RCA PB90 next to it for a little more punch, it sounded really great!

Coming to a GS thread near you...

sE X1ds on toms
Sterling AT31 on snare
M201 on Hats
MC012 on Overheads
TOMB ribbon knee mic
(not seen)
e602 II in BD
EV RE10 bottom SD
SR Boundry mics on room

I want to hear those boundary mics sometime! I had some great results with some crown's in a room like that years ago.

I don‘t have any myself, but often simulate PZMs by putting some mics really close to the wall opposite the drums, practically touching it, spaced as widely as possible.
Last time I did this with a pair of 414XL-S (omni or cardioid, can‘t recall), fully cranked the highs and lows on the Studer 963 inputs. Incredible detail, punch and size. Could even have worked as the only drum tracks.
EV omnis (635a & RE50) without EQ worked nice, too, for tracks you‘d rather tuck in behind close mics.

the absence of early reflections sets the blm/pzm apart from other mics - i'm often using a schoeps blm3g (old large version) as part of my beloved equidistant l/C/r+kick drum mic setup - for ambis, i like them a bit less but of course it may work well (depending on room and further processing).

These particular mics are a little bright, so I've been taking some high shelf off them in tracking. I've got them in an experimental position in front of the BD facing out on this particular tracking date. They are $35 so I bought the pair on a whim.

Love this thread and have learned a lot from it! Can I ask for people that are laying down drums for a bunch of different songs/styles over the course of a day, what approach do you take to getting those different sounds from the same kit?
Do you set up a bunch of different micing approaches, record them all and choose at mixdown?
Use one mic setup and achieve the difference you need with damping, swapping snares and cymbals and processing after the fact?

this is a great question.

i can answer from. my perspective of tracking drums for probably 25 years now.

90% of the time i found that artists had mostly no clear vision for what the end result would be when we started tracking drums. the battle was always trying to cover my bases so that no matter what they wanted once more over dubs were laid down and the songs developed...i could cover it. so, to that end, on drum tracking dates i often recorded so many mics. stupid amounts.

and then later in the production and mix, i might use 1/4 or less of them in the actual mix depending on the song and other parts and desired vibe.

my standard setup for years was close mics on all the drums. top and bottom snare, toms were top and bottom using y cables with one side wired out of phase.

kick drum had one inside, then a large diaphragm usually a FET on the front head, then often i'd make a tunnel out of blankets and have another large mic a few feet directly in front of the kick drum.

then i'd do a mono overhead, usually a darker mic...coles, something tubey, and then a stereo pair of overheads usually something a little more open and airy sounding. then i'd always have a few mono kit mics. one over the kick pointing down at the beater head and bottom of the snare. one right in front of the kit maybe chest height to the drummer. a few random mono mics low near the floor or farther back in the room. a few stereo pair of room mics...one pair fairly close. one pair far back in the room. then maybe even a few more mono mics in a chamber or bathroom or hallway or in an adjacent room.

then i often had a mic under the drummers throne and if i had access to a 251 or something really nice, i'd put it behind the drummers head looking at the center of the kit. with the drummer head sort of blocking the hi hats.

all that was when i had mostly no idea what the final sound really needed to be.

when i was producing or had more control over the overall vibe. i'd use way way way less mics.

ideally as few as possible.

so many times a pair of coles or 160's and a mic near the kick drum. sometimes a 201 near the snare.

or a stereo AEA or R88 over the top of the kit and a FET condensor or coles out in front pointing down at the bass drum.

i have a ton of snares at my studio. always have. i'd always rather grab another snare than try to eq a sound to work. usually just swapping out for a different snare was faster and got the gig done quicker.

same with cymbals.

kick drum i'd always have blankets around to deaden if needed to shorten the decay or i'd often place another larger bass drum in front of the main bass drum if i needed a bigger sound or more length to the bass drum note.

and then..tape. so much tape. rolls and rolls of tape. always.

These new pop-up ads, to quote Slipperman, suck major moose weenie with a throbbing purple vein!

lol, agreed...

For a situation like that I will almost always use the same mics and switch out any or every part of the kit. I have 4 kits, 13 snares and 30 cymbals, and that’s in addition to whatever the drummer brings or is lying around at a particular studio. I’ll mix and match; whatever suits the production. On those types of sessions I’ll have some extra mics set up, like multiple room mics, for options but I won’t swap out overhead mics or anything like that. I might switch the main kick mic, if for instance going from a ported to a non-ported kick drum, or swap a 57 with a d112 if I’m using one of my super deep low-tuned snares. I will also run the kick and snare top mics through a channel strip with EQ so I can adjust the tone when I change drums. Another thing I’ll have handy are dampening devices, like roots EQ dampening rings, snareweights, tea towels, etc… and half a dozen bass drum beaters. I’m not afraid to take the front head off a bass drum or the bottom heads from some toms if that sound is needed. And also, importantly, you’ll see me sitting behind the kit before every new track getting cut tuning the drums to perfection - by ear and feel, not to absolute pitches or with a drum dial or anything silly like that.

I find some swap outs does the trick more often than not. I have a dozen snares, and a bunch of cymbals, and at times I might even swap toms. You can really make the whole set feel different by changing the snare and hats, for instance.

Here's my new Sugar Percussion 15x7 Cedar snare. I think 15's get a bad rep for being "niche". I'm loving it and will be using it as the main snare here...

sounds great, man.

jefferson makes some fantastic drums. i need to get him to make me one.

they do seem to have a unique voice to other drums. i'm always looking for that.

Really like that last tuning with the towel and the higher tuning.

Is that the v4 or v13 behind the drummers shoulder?

V4, you can see the other one to the right. It's just a low spaced pair dividing the kit in half sideways. I usually prefer that for spaced overheads.

Yeah, most drummers who are used to 14“ find them weird.
But the 15x5 Ludwig Supralite is our most used snare when players don‘t use their own.
I like to think of it as an oversized piccolo.

I made some upgrades to my home studio.

Oriollo Bakar Spun Copper Drums: 22X14, 13X9, 16X14
Tama Mastercraft Bell Brass 14X6.5
UFIP Cymbals

Bass Drum 1: Electro-Voice RE20 with Earthworks KickPad KP1, Daking Mic-Pre IV, Daking FET III
Bass Drum 2: Shure Beta 91A, Grace Design M108
Bass Drum 3: Solomon LoFReQ Sub-Mic, Grace Design M108
Snare: Earthworks SR25, Daking Mic-Pre IV, Daking FET III
Toms Top & Bottom: Shure Beta 98H/C, Grace Design M108
Overheads: Earthworks SR25 (2x), Daking Mic-Pre IV
Room Stereo: Cascade Fat Head II with Lundahl Transformer (2x), Grace Design M108
Room Mono: Antelope Edge Solo (U87 Emulation)
Hi-Hat: Shure SM81, Daking Mic-Pre One

Interface: Antelope Discrete 8 Synergy Core